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Date: 4/6/2021
WILLIAMSBURG – Voters in Williamsburg convened for a Special Town Meeting on April 3 to vote on two warrant articles.
For the first article, residents were asked to vote to appropriate $57,073.42 from the Sewer Enterprise Fund to pay the balance for the FY20 sewer service cost assessment to Northampton.
Water and Sewer Commissioner Jim Hyslip spoke to the motion and said the fee resulted from increased food waste going down drains in homes as a result of the pandemic.
“The reason for this amount is a surcharge that was assessed to the town of Williamsburg because of our high biological oxygen demand and high total suspended solids from our sewer system that goes down to the plant in Northampton. This was a direct consequence of the pandemic with people home and putting stuff down the drain,” he said.
Residents unanimously approved Article 1.
The meeting’s second article was a request for $5.1 million for the demolition of the Helen E. James School to replace it with a new public safety complex at 16 Main St.
Jim Ayres, a member of the Owner’s Project Manager Steering (OPM) Committee for the complex, spoke to the motion and said the committee unanimously agreed that the current fire and police departments were inadequate and in disrepair.
“As a committee we are unanimous in feeling that the current facilities for public safety, for fire, and for police are thoroughly inadequate and are not conditions anyone should be working in, let alone the people who serve our community in such an appropriate way,” he said.
At a prior Special Town Meeting in February 2020, Ayres said, the committee was tasked with determining the best of three options, one was to build a public safety complex connected to the current school building, the second was repairing the school and building a new complex, and the third was to demolish and replace the school.
“The integrated scenario would cost our town $7.5 million, the second scenario that looks at a free-standing building next to the James and the James brought up to code was a $6.5 million scenario. The scenario that we are putting forward to do costs $5.1 million,” he said.
Resident Jim Moran, who said he was initially against demolishing the building, said the demolition of the school and subsequent building of a new public safety complex was necessary.
“When all the different committees were working on different avenues, I was really skeptical of everything that was going on. I approached the committee and asked them to hire an architect and a design team and poke some holes in the building,” he said. “Now we know the truth and I am devastated the school may have to come down, but we need the safety complex, and we have tremendous police and fire departments, we cannot keep letting them work where they are.”
With a 259 in favor to 48 opposed vote count, the appropriation for the new public safety complex passed.